


Homebound

by whosays_penultimate



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Canon Timeline, Case Fic, Codependency, Dreamsharing, Gen, Hurt Sam Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, I'm Bad At Tagging, Protective Dean Winchester, Season 2, mentions of animal cruelty (non-explicit), one non-explicit sexual situation, potential triggers for claustrophobia, so basically pretty much their canon relationship as i see it, walking the fine line between wincest and gencest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-26
Updated: 2015-04-26
Packaged: 2018-03-25 20:51:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3824656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whosays_penultimate/pseuds/whosays_penultimate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a cat missing in a remote village. Not the usual case for Sam and Dean, but Sam drags his brother along on a seemingly harmless adventure, only to find themselves trapped in a nightmare.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Homebound

PROLOGUE:

~~

"I thought people were going to think ill of me, because I loved the house better than my husband. But they don't understand what this house means to me".

The young newspaper reporter nods sympathetically at the old woman.

"But you’re going to show them. We'll show them exactly what it means to you. Now, can you please tell us a little more about yourself.”

The old woman nods. "I've been living here since I was born", she begins. "In these parts, we are one with our homes. If you uproot us, we die."

The reporter abruptly snatches the microphone away, as she says, feelingly:

"But now your homes are on the verge of destruction, because these people feel modernity ought to step in. We have a duty not to let it happen, not while this nation has a conscience left..."

She turns slightly and notices that the camera is focused on her.

“Steve, you idiot, pan over”, she hisses through her teeth. "Close up on her. Oh, for goodness sakes!”

She strides towards him. Steve lowers his camera.

“Could you move her a little forward, maybe get out of the shadows? I don’t want that thing to appear on film, it’ll just distract from the message, you know how people are.”

She throws her head back dramatically and laughs, a hysterical note creeping in.

“You are still under the mistaken impression that you’re running this show, aren’t you? Wasn’t it more than clear that she doesn’t want to come out? Are you gonna brutalize a little old lady just because you have to work more at lighting? And that _thing_ , as you so eloquently call it, stays there. It’s a scratch in an old building, to make superstitious folk shit their pants. I don’t know what it is, and I don’t really care. It’s historical and it’s _sensational_ and it stays _in_. So the next time you turn that bloody camera on, make sure you take a nice big close-up of it, _alright_?”

She turns back to the old woman, who has remained sitting on the doorstep of the shadowy house, all throughout this exchange.

“We’re gonna do this again, are you ready, darling?”

The old woman smiles shyly.

~~

CHAPTER 1

It starts harmlessly enough, with Sam browsing the internet in a diner outside Cicero, looking for cases.

"Hmmm," he says.

Dean looks up from his plate, expecting the description of a gruesome murder.

"Did you know there's a village, right here in Illinois, called Altenburg, which is funny because the name means 'old town', where the people have the longest lifespan per capita in all of America?"

"Thanks, Random", Dean says, then turns his attention to his fries.

"They eat some special kind of mushrooms, or what?"

"I don't know, it doesn't say", Sam replies, seriously. "They have a weird custom there of writing the names of the inhabitants on their houses, together with their age. The age gets rewritten every year in a ceremony as part of the birthday celebrations. One of the oldest houses in that village - whose last inhabitant died a while back, still has the age mysteriously changed every year. She would be 200-something at this point."

"Huh", Dean says. "Any unexplained deaths?"

"No..."

"So it's just some local who wants their little village on the tourist map."

"Maybe. They sure got heavy media coverage for a place with less than 200 inhabitants. A few years back, a company wanted to establish a drilling rig there, but the residents strongly opposed the idea. They were offered very advantageous relocation opportunities but they refused to move. Their cause was helped by a media campaign which featured one of the old women who was forced to give up her home and the tragedy it meant for her. She got it back in the end, however."

"Uh-huh. Happy ending, then. Good."

Sam looks up and scoffs at Dean's expression of undisguised boredom.

"On to bigger and better things, Sammy. Maiden at the Allstate Arena in Rosemont tomorrow night. You and me. We could blow this joint and easily make it to Rosemont some time tonight."

Dean winks at him, like saying 'it's a date'. He looks happy and carefree and Sam will take any such moments he can get.

~

Dean brushes his teeth in the motel bathroom the next morning, when he hears Sam from the other room:

"You know, the town I was telling you about yesterday, Altenburg, also has the highest concentration of population ages 65 and above in the entire country. It's probably gonna be abandoned in a few years probably. No child has been born there in the past 10 years. The only school in the village closed up a while ago."

"Is this a reflection on the fluke of existence?" Dean asks sarcastically, after he spits the toothpaste in the sink.

He's fidgety for a hunt, he's been so for a while now. But not so desperate as to take to Sleepy Hollow.

"I'll ask again, anyone died weird?"

"Not that I could find."

"Anyone reported missing?"

"No..."

"That seals it for me. Not interested."

"Well, there was a cat..."

"A cat?"

Dean looks up incredulously at Sam, like his little brother is taking the piss. Sam's got his bitch face on, the one that withstands any challenge.

"A girl called Dorothy Levine reported her cat missing. According to her, she was last seen around Hestie Ensam's house. That's the house I was telling you about yesterday, with the age-changing shtick."

"I thought you said no children were born there in the past 10 years."

"She was adopted, from the nearby village of Dresden, by a couple in their sixties."

"Child loses pet, it's a sad story. But I've heard a lot of sad stories lately. Fluffy the kitten does not make top of the list. Sorry, Sammy."

"The girl raised all the village over the cat's unexplained disappearance, it made the local papers. Even went to the sheriff about it."

"Exactly how old is this girl?"

"Um- she's 7."

"And she went to the sheriff all by herself to report her cat missing?"

"Apparently. The entire village dotes on this child, this article I've been reading calls her 'Dorothy in the Land of Oz'."

"Cause she's the only child in a village full of grandmas and grandpas."

Dean lies comfortably back on the bed and closes his eyes, not hiding how bored he is.

"Someone better get her a new cat."

"She doesn't want a new cat, Dean, she wants her friend back", Sam says in a quiet little voice, which clues Dean in that maybe the topic has subtly shifted to something else.

Dean opens his eyes, takes Sam in. He doesn't rise to the bait, of course.Instead he asks:

"Where exactly is this place?"

"Apparently it's some 20 miles from Rosemont."

"Fine", Dean says.

"Tonight, we got a date with Bruce & co. But tomorrow, we'll go."

~

Dean parks the Impala in front of the Altenburg sheriff's office at 11.21 pm, according to the big clock in the town square. It took them less than an hour to look around the village, noting that aside from a school, the small village could boast of no bar, restaurant, or diner, there was a single general store which was closed at the time they drove by, and, something potentially more unsettling, no cemetery or crematorium. Dean suggested that the large church they passed at one point might serve that function, but agreed that they couldn't inconspicuously check in broad daylight. The houses were all large, Victorian-style manors, some of which looked freshly painted, others with the grey dilapidated appearance of abandoned houses, but no small or one-storey buildings. Most houses had vast vegetable gardens.

The sheriff was sitting at a desk, legs crossed on the table, watching what looked like a soap opera on a small tv. He scowled when he saw Sam and Dean enter.

"Who are you?" he grunted.

"Sheriff Parks? Hello. My name is Sam Murray, this is my partner, Dean Harris. We're pet detectives. We're here about the disappearance of Pearl the cat."

Dean bites his lip to keep from laughing at Sam's deadpan delivery of their ridiculous cover.

"Excuse me? Who called you here?" the sheriff frowns.

"Well, no one did, but we read about it in the paper, saw Dorothy's appeal for help and decided to investigate, you know, pro bono."

"That's very good samaritan of you, boys, but I think we can handle it"

"Are you sure? Cause it seems to me, the more people are involved, the sooner we can find this girl's cat."

"We take care of our own around here, fellas. I'm sure we're gonna find Dorothy's cat, safe and sound. You being experts, you know how animals are, right? They go, they come back."

"What about this house, the “ _Hestie Ensam Manor_ ”? Where Dorothy said she last saw the cat?"

"What about it?"

"Isn't this the house whose supposed age of the inhabitant changes automatically every year? At least according to the article we read.”

"What does this have to do with the cat?"

"Nothing, it's just....it's unusual, isn't it? Who do you think is doing it?"

The sheriff narrowed his eyes.

"You two are Gruvchy's folks, aren't you? He sent you."

"I'm sorry, who?"

"Stow the crap. You go ahead and quote me on that. Then you and your shady friend can put our town in the rearview mirror, sharpish. We don't want your kind around here."

~

"Well, this was welcoming", Dean says, as they step out into the drizzling rain. "I thought quaint villages like this are supposed to be full of friendly people."

"Who do you suppose this Gruvchy guy is?"

"I don't know, but if he's an outsider, there’s only one place he’ll be staying."

"The motel."

"Yes, the motel altogether sounds like a good idea. There's one thing I'd rather be doing in this weather."

Sam raises an eyebrow.

"...Sleep, Sam", Dean grins. "But thanks for playing."

They get into the car, Dean taps on the driving wheel, doesn't start the engine. He looks over at Sam, waiting for him to argue.

"I just have a bad feeling about this", Sam repeats.

"There's no evidence of anything supernatural around here. Heck, there's no evidence of any wrongdoing. As for your gut feeling - rainy weather, old houses, creepy atmosphere...", Dean trails off, shrugging. "It's probably pulled your 'I-think-I've-seen-this-horror-movie lever".

"Abnormally long lifespans...", Sam continues.

"People eat their vegetables around here, Sam. Might be all they eat", he adds under his breath. There was no fast food joint in town and Dean felt its absence bitterly.

"What about the cat?"

"They might eat cats, too."

Sam scoffs at him and Dean grins widely. Riling Sam up is definitely one of his favorite things in the world.

"How about the fact that there's no cemetery in town? No crematorium either."

"Yeah, that _is_ weird. What do you suppose it means?"

"I don't know. But it's gotta warrant at least us sticking around."

"All right. Let's go talk to the little girl. And then check up the house."

~

In front of Dorothy Levine’s house there is a wooden panel with flowery decorations, and three names inscribed: “Alan Levine - 65, Margaret Levine - 62, Dorothy Levine - 5.” The panel looks like it’s been painted over many times. Sam and Dean exchange meaningful glances.

“Bit odd," Dean acquiesces, “but less creepy than I expected.”

Sam grimaces and knocks on the door.

*

"I have no one to play with", Dorothy explains. “Except Pearl. Aunt Lorna gave her to me for my birthday, when I turned 5. She was a kitten when I got her. Looked like a yellow baby chicken. I took care of her, all by myself. Now she’s a big cat. Look.” She shows them a picture. “Isn’t she beautiful?”

“Gorgeous”, Dean confirms.

“She’s my best friend.”

"When did you last see Pearl?" Sam asks.

"We used to run together. This is a great place for running. Even when it rains. And it almost always rains here. Pearl doesn't mind the rain. She loves it. That's weird for a cat, mom says."

"So you were running that day?"

"Yes. We play this game, where she hides from me and I have to find her. I call her name but she doesn't come out until I find her. Then it's my turn to hide and she finds me. She's very good at that game. She always finds me quickly but once I spent an entire afternoon looking for her! And another time - I couldn't find her at all. I went home crying but she stood waiting for me on the front porch!"

"But this time it wasn't like this."

"No, this time, we were running along Hestie Ensam Manor. And suddenly she was just gone! I looked for her, but I didn't dare go inside the house, Pearl loves exploring it but I think it's creepy! So I went back, and I expected to see her on the front porch, like the last time. But she wasn't there, and then the next day came and she still wasn't back and I'm so afraid now."

"Why are you afraid, Dorothy?"

"I dream of her! She's trapped! Trapped inside that awful house! She scratches and cries and wants to get out. She's soo scared! I know she's in there, I know! She wants to come back to me, but she can't!"

"Dorothy, it's ok. If she's in there, we'll find her. I promise. Do you believe me?"

"Yes", she sniffles quietly.

Her mother appears in the doorway, she smiles at Sam and Dean as they get up to leave.

"Thanks so much for doing this, it means a lot", she whispers to them. "I can see you're good people. It really helps just that you talked to her. As for the cat, I'm sure Pearl will come back. She's very attached to Dorothy."

"Your daughter is very distraught about these bad dreams she's having about Pearl."

"Yes. My heart breaks for her that she has to go through this."

"The house that she's talking about, it's been searched, right?"

"Of course we searched it. We found no sign of the cat. But everyone knows, that place is abandoned. No one has lived in Hestie Ensam Manor in a long time."

"So we gathered.”

"Mrs. Levine, you’ve lived here a long time, have you not?”

She nods: “My whole life.”

“Have you ever heard any...strange stories about that house? Like for instance, it being haunted?”

“No”, she smiles uneasily. “Of course, there’s the age changing every year by itself which is a bit strange, but I’m sure that’s just someone’s idea of a prank. That house has been abandoned for as long as I can remember.”

“And there have been no other strange events, like disappearances?”

“No,” she says firmly. “No, nothing like that.”

“Has Dorothy told you that she dreams about Pearl trapped inside the house?”

"Listen. Dorothy is a sensitive child, with a very active imagination. This business had a bad effect on her, but she'll get over it. We love her with all our hearts. That's gotta count for something. Thank you again for dropping by."

"Of course. Mrs. Levine, we promised your daughter we'd find her cat and we will."

"Okay", she offers an uncertain smile and closes the door behind them.

*

“She was a bit quick to put all our suspicions to rest, wasn’t she?”

“Yeah”, Dean admitted. “She definitely knows more than she was willing to share with us.”

“Children do have a very active imagination. I remember I had nightmares for days on end after we hunted our first wendigo.”

“Yeah well, you were 10, and that thing would give nightmares to most sane adults, too.”

“Remember that one time you and I both had the same dream?”

“It wasn’t exactly the same, we both dreamt that Pastor Jim was Santa Claus but in your dream he gave us cinnamon brownies and in my dream he gave us pumpkin pie.”

“Of course you’d dream of _pie_.”

CHAPTER 2

The old house looms larger than life, like most of the houses they've seen in the village of Altenburg. It manages to look both shabby and imposing at the same time - it might have been homely at one point but now it is clearly deserted and left to rot. But Dean points to the upper windows and says:

"It looks like there's a light on upstairs."

"Let's go see."

"Wait, Sam, look -" On the wall, at eye level, there are scratches in the old wood: " _Hestie Ensam, 1778 -_ " And underneath it: _229_. The number denoting the age is also scratched into the wood and there are no signs of a recent paint job or old scratch marks.

"Right".

They exchange wary glances.

“The Addams Family Manor”, Dean huffs under his breath, pulling out his salt gun and motioning for Sam to do the same as he reaches for the door.

The door is unlocked and opens with a creak at the first prod.

Inside, the house looks cozier than on the outside, but with the same air of abandonment. There is a draft in the large hallway, and Sam and Dean eventually find it comes from the basement. The basement door is open, so they climb down carefully, but there's nothing to see there, except for some yellow leaves on the dusty floorboards. There is an open window and the branches of a tree are lightly scratching over the glass.

"You know, the cat could have climbed in through here".

Sam gives Dean a look.

"Just saying! Maybe they didn't search the place properly. Let’s give it a good once-over."

Sam kneels and knocks on the floorboards, then on the walls, but nothing sounds empty. They examine every inch of the basement with their flashlights, finding nothing out of the ordinary. Eventually they climb back into the house to give the rest of the place the same thorough treatment. Cupboards are opened, furniture is moved around, carpets thrown aside.

They find scattered belongings of the former occupants strewn all throughout the house, coffee cups and plates in the kitchen, towels in the bathroom, some slippers, a pair of glasses, but as they reach the room on the upper floor, they draw in a surprised breath at the sight. The room is cluttered and looks _inhabited_. Sam and Dean look around on instinct, expecting someone to confront them at any second, but silence and stillness prevails. They discover that the source of the mysterious light they could see from outside is a reddish-yellow stained glass pane, covering what appears to be a niche in the wall, parallel to the window.

Dean knocks on it, then looks at Sam:

"Should we break this, do you think?"

Sam approaches and looks through the pane.

"I don't think we need to. It's almost transparent. There's nothing in there."

They turn back to examine the room. It looks almost like a doll house, heavy in adornments and frilly lace, it does not stretch the imagination at all to think a 19th century fussy aristocratic spinster used to live here. Sam and Dean are out of tune with the place in their jeans, boots and leather jacket, guns in their hands, smelling of cheap motel soap and road dust. The room itself has a stilted, flowery, musky smell. They move like giants around small delicate things which look like a stronger gust of wind might scatter them around. A set of light blue teacups in a corner. Ornaments and various porcelain trinkets, boxes, small animals, a group of dancers. A faded black and white photograph of a black dog sitting on a chair, one of his paws wrapped in white gauze, gazing mournfully at the camera. Another black and white picture of a little girl asleep in a bed, the covers drawn up to her chest. Dead flowers scattered among them, on lacy tablecloths. A collection of dolls snugly wrapped in a red coverlet, draped over a large armchair.

"This place makes me itchy all over. Yeeech." Dean shakes himself exaggeratedly.

Sam rolls his eyes, Dean counters with a cheeky grin.

"Seriously though, I mean, what are we even looking for here? It's just a house. It's Granny Mildew's Mansion, with a definite whiff of creepy, but supernatural? Nah."

"So where's 'Granny Mildew' then?"

"Gone. Dead. Years ago. Who cares? There’s no sign of her ghost around, anyway."

"So you're saying no one lives here?"

"Sam, it's deserted. The door wasn't even locked. This old stuff left behind is not even worth stealing. Not by the locals' standards, anyway. Can't blame them." Dean sniffs.

"Everything is so....neatly laid out."

"Some abandoned houses are like that. Beds left tucked in, toys lying about, as if waiting for the people to return."

"There's no dust", Sam points out.

"What do you mean?"

"If this place is deserted, shouldn't there be layers of dust all over? I don't even see a cobweb. This room looks pristine."

Dean considers it.

“Isn't it a bit unusual for a house this size to remain empty for long? ”Sam insists.

“Usually, yes.”

“Someone, or something might still live here. Haunting? Demon? EMF is off the charts, but then again, power lines. Whoa - Dean, come take a look!" Sam had unwrapped the dolls from their makeshift bed and removed the coverlet. There, on the armchair, a strange symbol is painted, in red. A string of wavy lines intercross a string of straight lines, all encompassed by a rectangle inside a circle.

Dean scratches at it. “It looks like red dye. Three cheers for that, huh?”

“This is a weird looking symbol, Dean. I haven't seen anything like it before.”

“Yeah, me neither”. He pulls out his cellphone and snaps a picture. “Maybe Bobby knows.” Dean makes quick work of sending the symbol to Bobby Singer, texting him “This look familiar to you? Story later.”

~

"Hey, you guys stay at the motel out on Route 36, right?"

Sam and Dean turn. A man in his forties, with at least two days' worth of stubble and a jacket, which, like its owner, looks like it had seen better times, approaches them just as they leave the house.

"I've seen you driving around. I’m staying at Ridley Motel too. Spotted your car. Real nice piece."

"Isn't she just", Dean replies, brightening. "Sam Murray, Dean Harris. And you are?"

"Nick Gruvchy."

"We were actually looking for you."

"Come to the right place then", Gruvchy laughs. "I'm here most of the time."

"Here, in the village?"

"The village, yeah, but mostly around this house."

"What's your interest in this?"

"What's yours?"

"I asked first", Dean points out.

Nick Gruvchy shrugs. "I sniffed out a story. I'm a freelance journalist. If I expose what happens around here, I'm gonna get the breakthrough I'm looking for. Your turn."

"We're pet detectives, we read the article about the missing cat and decided to help Dorothy Levine find her pet. Now, what do you think happens around here?"

"Oh. I wrote that article, you know? Thought it might get people interested in this godawful corner of the world. A village full of old farts, there's no one here under 60 but you and me. And Dorothy, of course. The only little child in town. Her parents won't let her out of this goddamn place. She'll be of school age soon. That's not a normal environment to live in, it's child cruelty, is what it is."

"She has parents who love her though - don't knock that", Dean says.

"Shitty weather too", Nick goes on. "Keeps raining all the time, same kind of oppressive pit-pat, pit-pat kind of rain...drives one to suicide, know what I mean?"

Sam and Dean stare blankly.

"Oh well. You're just here about the cat", he says dismissively.

"We're interested in anything that might make this place out of the ordinary", Sam says softly.

"Why?" Nick replies, eyes narrowing with distrust.

"We're not really pet detectives", Dean reveals.

Nick stares at them for a few seconds, then bursts out laughing.

"I knew it, hahaha! I mean, I'm a bloody reporter, I con people for a living! That was a stupid excuse though, take it from me - no one's buying it. I made you the first time I saw you. You're here looking for cheap thrills, ain't ya? Haunted house, boooo? Take my advice, kids, go spend your honeymoon elsewhere. This ain't no fun and games. Trust me. There are wicked people here."

"Wicked? What do you mean?"

Nick looks uncomfortably over his shoulder, reluctant to speak.

"Listen Nick", Sam picks up, "we read your article, and yeah, I gotta admit, it piqued our curiosity. Sounded very creepy, didn't it, Dean?"

"Hell yeah", Dean chimes in."Then we came in to take a look, and apparently they don't even have a cemetery around here, I mean, what's up with that?"

Nick smiles, taking the bait.

"Do you know why that is, guys?" he says with no small amount of relish. "These freaks not only write their age on their bloody houses, but they bury their dead inside the house with them."

"...."

"Yeah. It's like a house and a mausoleum, two in one! I once asked a woman, her husband had just died, and I asked her 'When's the funeral?' Cause I noticed, like you did, that there's no cemetery around here, you know, and I was curious, what these weirdos did with their dead, did they eat them, did they burn them, what?' And she acted all shifty, said there was only going to be a small service, tried to get rid of me like that. But I kept insisting and finally she told me, their dead never leave their houses. They stow 'em inside someplace. I don't know, cause I never got the chance to look! But there you have it!” He looked from one to the other, drinking in their reactions.

"Wow, that - that's gotta be the creepiest thing I’ve ever heard, downright unsanitary, right, Sammy?"

"Definitely. But still - there were no disappearances or gory murders or anything like that, around here, so, I mean, besides this...disturbing little custom they have, nothing that would make them wicked, like you said?"

"That's not true", the man grins. "There were disappearances. But there were too few and far between for the proper authorities to take interest or sense a pattern. The sheriff here, dumb as a brick. Rest of them ain't much better."

"But you know about them."

"Oh yeah. One of them was one of my colleagues. At the Chicago Tribune. I used to work there before I turned freelancer. She did an editorial about this very house. Of course it was all a set-up. No one has lived in this house for ages. But she got one of the old bats in town - no idea who, to spill a sob story about how she’s been living in this house since forever and how she'd die to leave here. She probably did die since, cause I've been meaning to talk to her when I first came to Altenburg but I couldn't find her. Meant to ask her about Marie."

"Marie was your colleague? What happened to her?"

"Just up and vanished."

"After she did the editorial."

"Well, not right away. It was some time afterwards, I'd been - out of the country for a while, and when I came back I looked for her but I couldn't find her. The police investigated for a while, but then they gave up."

"Do you have an idea about what happened to her?", Sam prods.

"Oh I do have an idea. But there's no way I'm telling _you_ so you can take the story _and_ the credit. Just go back to your basements and your X Files posters, and wait to read about it in the paper."

Nick winks at them, then makes to walk away.

“Uh, Nick?” Dean calls him back. “Please, you have to throw us a bone, we’re dying of curiosity here. What do you know about this Hestie Ensam who lived in the house? Like, how did she die and when, where is she buried, this kind of thing?”

“Don’t you get it? I couldn’t find anything on her. They must have destroyed her records, as part of the documentary slash campaign to save the village from the evil drilling company... Wouldn’t do to have someone snoop around and discover the real Hestie Ensam has been dead for two centuries, while that old fraud pretends to be her on tv.”

“But then – why keep up the charade with her age changing every year?”

“Ha. That’s obviously the work of a joker, who’s in the know and wants to mock the whole affair. Keeps changing that number every year, it’s hilarious. I’m trying to draw him out, could use him on my side, when I expose these frauds, these murderers.”

With that, he turns and strides towards the house. Sam and Dean watch him walk away.

~

Back at the motel, Sam checks up on Gruvchy.

"Oh wow. Dean, listen to this. Turns out, Nick Gruvchy's involvement here is more personal than we thought. Dorothy is his daughter."

"You don’t say."

"Yes. I hacked my way into her adoption records. Dorothy Gruvchy. That's too uncommon a name for it to be a coincidence. And it fits with what I found out about Nick. He didn’t turn ‘freelancer’ by choice, he lost his job at the Chicago Tribune. Apparently him being ‘out of the country when his colleague disappeared’ was an euphemism for spending time in prison, for involuntary manslaughter.”

Dean smiles at Sam’s choice of words.

“What did he do?” he asks.

“According to this, he… accidentally stabbed his wife with a coat hanger. Their 2-year old daughter was placed in a foster home."

"How does one accidentally do that?"

"Must have had a good lawyer", Sam shrugs. "So after he serves time, he comes here, tries to get close to Dorothy? Tries to make himself useful by finding her cat? And maybe write a sensational article about the town's dark secrets while he's at it."

"Looks like you were right, Dean. Might be nothing supernatural here after all."

~

The next morning, Dean enters their room, slamming the door.

"We're going back to the house", Dean says in a huff, picking up his guns.

"Huh", Sam goes. "Where've you been? Why?"

"Because I said so", Dean says forcefully.

"Now let's move, we're losing daylight."

"What changed your mind?" Sam insists.

"Went to talk on Gruvchy. Knocked on his door, didn't answer. Let myself in, no one there. Bed unslept in, luggage still on the floor."

"So you think he never got back last night?"

"All I know is, we left Nick Gruvchy at the house yesterday. That's where we're going. We should never have left him alone there."

"Dean, he's been creeping around that house long before we showed up. Wait - Dean - "

"Can we walk and talk?"

"So now you think he vanished? Like the cat? I thought you said there was nothing supernatural about that place, Dean."

"Well I obviously changed my mind now. Puts a new spin on things now a human's disappeared."

"Maybe not. You know, the sheriff seemed very hostile towards him yesterday. In fact, we now know that a lot of people wanted this guy gone, starting with Dorothy's adoptive parents. The house might just be a smokescreen."

"If the sheriff wanted him killed, he would have done it long before we showed up, nice and quiet. Doesn't make sense to do it the very day after we came to drill him."

"Maybe he fell in a hidden trapdoor that leads to a treasure!"

"Ha ha, smartass".

~

“This wasn’t here yesterday, was it?”

They’re staring at a small mound of earth in the middle of the room on the upper floor. It looks fresh, wet with rain, and bits of grass sticking out. Fat earthworms are twisting around in it. Sam pokes at it carefully. Lumps of earth roll around the room.

“There’s something underneath it.”

They bend down to remove the earth and reveal one of the dolls that was on the armchair yesterday. There is earth in her eyes and mouth. On the floor beneath, there’s the same symbol they saw painted on the armchair, in the same red paint. Sam picks up the doll.

“This looks like witchcraft, Dean,” Sam says quietly.

“Gee, you think?” He stands up and steps viciously on the lumps of earth until they meld with the floorboards, then takes a spray can from his duffel bag and paints erratically over the symbol, until it becomes an angry red blob. He does the same with the one on the armchair.

Sam follows the proceedings skeptically but with sympathy.

“I’m going to call Bobby. He didn’t get back to us about that symbol.”

“Whatever is happening here, this cursed house seems at the centre of it. We should burn the place down.”

“Dean, we’re not going to burn down a house just because we found evidence of someone working a spell inside it. That won’t destroy the witch who’s doing it, they’ll just pick a different spot. We don’t even know for sure if this is connected to Gruvchy’s disappearance.”

“Come on, Sam. Creepy-ass doll buried in a creepy-ass mound in a creepy-ass house! And you think it’s what, a fertility ritual?”

Sam ignores him and dials a number on his cell.

“Bobby, hey. We’re here at that house – yeah, the one we told you about last night.”

“Did you find the cat?” Bobby asks sarcastically over the line.

“No, we didn’t, but there’s been some new developments. A man we talked with yesterday in front of the house has disappeared. We really need to know about that symbol we found.”

“I told you boys, I haven’t seen that symbol before.”

“Right. But now the stakes are higher, and we’re hoping you could help us research. We need to find out what it is as soon as possible, so we can stop whoever’s doing it.”

“Tell him about the mound,” Dean says.

“Listen, Sam, this whole thing is a needle in a haystack”, Bobby complains. “I don’t even know where to begin looking. If I could get something more to go on...”

“We also found a doll buried inside a mound of earth....and beneath it, that same symbol. It wasn’t here yesterday. Dean wants to burn the entire house down, so...help me rescue a historical monument here”, Sam jokes.

“Okay”, Bobby sighs, not particularly pleased at the relevance of this new bit of information. “I’ll call you back as soon as I got something. Take care, Sam.”

~

"Here's the thing, boys. Like I told you the last time, we take care of our own around here. We don't take kindly to outside interference."

"Okay. Message received loud and clear, sheriff. But it's not one of your own who disappeared this time."

"I can assure you that I will treat Mr. Gruvchy's disappearance with due interest."

"Right."

"But I see no reason to go by Hestie's old house and start tearing up floorboards. I need to have a suspicion, see? And I got no reason to suspect foul play. That house has been deserted for a long time. And last I checked there was no mafia around here."

"No, of course not - We didn't mean to imply anything like that."

"I did a round of the premises when Dorothy wouldn't shut up about her damned cat. Found nothing, no cat, no sign of anything suspicious. No serial killer lurking in the shadows who has it in for seedy reporters, mind you."

"But you - wouldn't happen to know who else might have it in for a seedy reporter around here, would you?"

"Are you - _interrogating_ me, son? Cause it sounds a lot like you are. Look - why don't you go home and let us do our job finding your friend. Meanwhile you can do your own job and rescue Bambi or whatever it is you claim to do. Capisce?"

~

"It's sad, how much of a clichee he is."

"Yeah, suspicious much?"

"Black Rock level, man"

"So what are we going to do, Dean?"

"Take care of this without his help, what else?"

"It's not gonna be easy, if he's against us."

"Sam, the badges are pretty much always against us, except for the times when they're no show. That's the tune we always dance to."

"Yeah but, Dean - in this case the entire town might be against us."

"All the more reason to take care of this. No one else gonna."

"What's more troubling is that we still don't know what we're supposed to take out. Is it a cat-eating monster who's just developed a taste for human, is it the ghost of that Hestie woman, or what?"

"Well, whatever it is – the house is the place to start looking."

"Except that we’ve been there twice already, Dean, and aside from that weird symbol, which Bobby still has no clue about, the place is clean."

" _Suspiciously_ clean, as you pointed out, Sammy. So, we just gotta draw it out. Whatever's there."

"How are we gonna do that?"

"I've got an idea."

~

"Sleep in the house! Seriously, Dean?"

"What, are you chicken?"

"No, I'm just not ecstatic about spending the night in a cold ancient building."

"We've slept in worse places, princess. What better way to figure out what's going on? Better us than a civilian who has no idea what hit him."

"Like Nick Gruvchy."

"Not that we have any clear idea what's going on at this point, but at least we'll be ready." Dean emphasizes his point by cramming salt guns, shotguns, iron and silver rounds, holy water, hex bags and an assortment of knives into the duffel bag. "Now we're pretty much ready for everything we've got a name for."

"Well, alright", Sam sighs. "Let's get some sleeping bags too or we'll probably freeze by morning."

~

Sam and Dean sit up, huddled in their sleeping bags, half leaning on each other and half propped against the king-size bed in the middle of the upper-story room. As they set up camp there, they noticed that the scattered earth and the symbols had been entirely removed. If it wasn't for the doll they took with them, they might have thought they dreamed the whole thing. The floor was squeaky clean. It didn't much surprise them. Something or someone here liked to play hide and seek. It's the small hours of the morning and the house is completely silent and still.

"You think Granny Mildew's buried here somewhere?" Dean whispers.

"Maybe, if we're to believe Nick."

"We should look for her bones and burn them. They're probably in the basement."

"We didn't see any grave or marker there", Sam reminds him. "Or anywhere in the house for that matter. We knocked on the floorboards the first time we were here, remember? They didn't sound hollow."

"We should just burn the entire house down, like I said", Dean says morosely. The rhythmic patter of raindrops on the windowsill and the stillness of the house is makes him dizzy with sleep. "What time is it?", he yawns.

"3.14 am."

"Great. Witching hour's long passed and nothing’s happened. I'm going to catch some shut-eye, Sam. Wake me if anything stirs. Although I'm pretty damn sure nothing will."

Dean lays his head back on the bed and is sound asleep in seconds. Sam looks out into the darkness, digs his knuckles into his palm to fight sleep, tightens his hold on the knife and continues to keep vigil.

The witching hour may have passed, but the hour of the wolf is but starting. It is the hour when most people die, when sleep is deepest, when nightmares are most real.

 

Dean wakes up in the morning, lying on the floor, stiff and cold.

“Uhh - Sam you were right, it's so damn cold, my ass is freezing - Sam?"

He looks around. There is no sign of Sam. He sighs exaggeratedly and fishes his cellphone out of his jacket pocket. As he rings his brother's number, the melody sounds out from within the room. Dean spots Sam's cellphone on the floor, discarded on his sleeping bag, next to his gun. Panic slowly starts to overtake him.

"No...no no no no. God damnit!"

He jumps up and does a tour of the house, kicking everything in his path. Sam is nowhere to be found. His eyes turn glassy with tears, he's panting like he's run a marathon, and he's close to an epic breakdown.

"Fucking hell, where are you?!" he screams against the emptiness of the house. "Sam! Saaaaam! Take me, you sons of bitches! Take me!"

The house remains silent.

Dean calls Bobby.

~

"I like you, Sam", she croons. "Your soul is pure and beautiful. That's why you're here. The man you came here looking for, he's in the basement. He was a bad man. I don't like bad men. I trap them in the heavy darkness and set the foundation on their chest. I let them rot there. I don't soothe them with music and peace."

"Am I dead?" Sam gasps. "Oh god. I'm - "

"Shhh", she whispers.

"Let me out! Let me out of here!"

She glides across the room, and a music box starts playing, she starts singing along to the melody in a soft voice.

Sam feels his eyelids drooping.

"Listen", he says, voice slurred. "You have to let me out. You - you won't get away with this. My brother is looking for me."

"He's looking but he won't find you. You're dead to the world."

Sam struggles not to succumb to the pleasant languor threatening to engulf him.

He must remember, everything, the pain of dying, the pain of being pulled back from death, he must remember his brother is out there looking for him. He dreams about his brother and his dreams are both comforting and bitter. He struggles to get through to Dean, but it's like Dean is on another plane of existence, the separation hurts him like a knife in his guts. There are brief moments of clarity in which the woman called Hestie talks to him, confesses everything, pleased she has such a receptive audience and Sam does his best to indulge her.

"So you decided - to trap and kill the same people over and over again?"

"I know", she says. "I should get a medal for being so humanitarian."

"You cannot imagine the gift I've given you", she tells him. "You never knew a home, did you? Sitting by a warm hearth, in your mother's lap. You don't remember having that, do you? See, I can tell! You didn't even know what you were missing, what you were secretly longing for."

She weaves the spell of deceit about him, but Sam struggles to hang on to memories of the open road and sleeping in the car, windows rolled down and Dean singing along to cheesy rock ballads.

~

That night, Dean dreams. He's searching for Sam in a dark labyrinth that looks suspiciously like the old house. He hears Sam screaming for help, but he can't place the screams, can't focus on where they come from. So he bangs on doors and walls, frantic, claustrophobic, the stilted air of dead flowers and scented candles choking him. A reddish golden light flickers some way off. Sam smiles brilliantly at him from behind the stained glass pane. He presses his hands against the glass. "I'm here. I'm here, Dean." Dean grabs a chair and throws it at the window. It doesn't give. Sam looks back at him serenely, but Dean's blood runs cold because he can still hear the echoes of his screams. Suddenly Sam's smile twists into a crooked grin, his face turns the bruised-violet of the long-dead and his eyes crawl back into his sockets.

Dean wakes up in a cold sweat.

"Fuck", he swears, and runs a hand through his hair. "What is going on, what does it mean?", he repeats to himself, over and over, like a mantra, as if coaxing the universe to answer him. He turns their motel room apart, looking for hex bags. He doesn’t find any and he tugs at his hair in frustration, paces around like a trapped animal, close to despairing because he doesn't know what to do. There’s nothing for it, he’s gonna have to go back and play the bait again. And when whatever took Sam comes for him, it’ll either kill him or he’ll rip it to shreds. Dean’s okay with either.

He grabs his jacket and drives over to the house. He opens the door carefully, prepared for an attack, but none is forthcoming. With practiced ease, he slides in, covering every nook and cranny. The empty corners seem to laugh at him. The house looks just like it did when he first came here with Sam, and just like it did in his dream.

Except - Dean is pretty sure there wasn't an old lady sitting in an armchair by the fire, comfortable and cozy, looking like she'd been there since the dawn of time. Her eyes are half-closed and Dean steps forward slowly, salt-gun pointed, until he stands right in front of her.

"Who are you?" he rasps.

Opening her eyes, she regards him with mild surprise: "You can see me?"

"Are you a ghost?"

"My dear, no", she laughs, "I am very much alive."

She touches Dean's forearm with one wrinkled finger.

"See? Warm and breathing."

"What are you doing here?"

"Oh, I live here, don't I? This is my house. Why am I here indeed!"

Without lowering his gun, Dean spits out: "Me and my brother, we were here yesterday, heck, we slept here, and there was no sign of you. And you look a bit too accepting of the fact that a stranger just came into your house waving a gun in your face."

"So that means I'm a ghost, does it? You simple little man", she settles in her armchair more comfortably. "Your gun can't hurt me. No, neither can your other gun, with real bullets. Fire can hurt me even less", she laughs as if she could guess Dean was about to reach for his lighter. "I love fire. Warms my old bones. And as for you seeing me, I'm just as surprised as you are. But maybe not, maybe... you said you were here with your brother? The tall boy, who looked in need of a haircut? Ah, I see. Although, I can't quite pinpoint the family resemblance", she winks at him.

"What have you done to him?"

"My dear, what could an old feeble woman such as myself do to a fine young specimen like your brother?"

Dean pulls the safety off. "I'm about to test the theory that bullets don't hurt you. Tell me where he is."

The old woman spreads her arms. "Go ahead and test it. You won't rest until you do. I know your kind, angry young man. So go ahead. Shoot me. Then I'll tell you where Sam is."

"How do you know his name?"

"I've learned a lot about him. Shoot!" she raises her voice commandingly.

Dean's lips curl snidely as he adjusts the angle, aiming for her shoulder and fires.

The bullet disappears. It does not pass through her, nor does it miss its target, or ricochet, it just plain disappears.

The woman starts laughing.

"Who are you?" Dean asks, lowering his gun.

"Haven't you seen my name outside? Call me Hestie. And as for your brother, I think you've already got an idea where he is, don't you? I'm sure he's told you, just as he told you about me."

Unthinkingly, Dean turns, looks towards the reddish yellow light, steps closer to it. Sam is not behind the stained glass pane. He stares and stares, but there is nothing there.

"You can't see him?" she grins. "Patience, you will. He's there, as you well knew it. He told you so, didn't he? In a dream?"

Disconcerted and out of his element, Dean turns to face the unassuming Hestie. He senses her as an enemy but it's difficult for him to reconcile that notion with her helpless, slightly ridiculous appearance and start taking her seriously. Meanwhile she continues her seemingly senseless but disturbingly accurate tirade:

"I should have known you were bonded. That's why you dream about him. It might surprise you to know that I haven't had this happen before. Well, not with humans anyway...It happened, believe it or not, with a cat and a little girl. Sam reaches out to you in dreams, he can't otherwise - oh, it’s a side-effect of the spell, I can't reign in their dreams. But leaving them without would be cruel."

"There are others -- here?"

"Yes, just as you suspected. There's one in the basement, that evil man - his daughter is much better off without him - there's a good-natured priest in the east wall...a 60-year old virgin nun in the west wall, an annoying but useful newspaper reporter a bit to the right from where you're standing..."

“-and a cat?" Dean interrupts.

Hestie laughs gently. "Oh, the cat....you actually came here for the cat, didn't you? Fancy that."

"You killed them. Why?"

"My dear boy, they're not dead. Well, they're not exactly alive either but for the purpose of this exercise... let me put it this way: it doesn't matter. They're here to stay. You've seen how your weapons don't work against me and you can't even see your brother, let alone save him. You can't fight me, I rule here."

"Why - why can't I see him?" Dean insists, voice petulant like a child's. It's unbearable, the idea that his brother is within touching distance of him and yet he cannot help him.

"Camouflage, my dear. We are one with the house."

She grins brilliantly and it's like Sam's grin from Dean's dream. He shudders, blinks. Her grin only gets wider.

"Oh, little boy, you are way off your mark here. This is old magic... can you feel it? It smells like old bones and lavender."

"Okay, lady", Dean smiles tightly. "Let's put an end to this crazy show. What do you want?"

"I already have what I want, Dean. A beautiful cozy home, fire in the hearth, music and good company. Although I'm afraid it doesn't include you, so I'm going to ask you to leave."

"I'm not leaving my brother."

"Goodbye, Dean."

His hand clenches on the back of her armchair:

"You're gonna have to make me, you evil wit-" A strong current like a tornado sweeps through the house and suddenly all the chairs, armchairs, tables, and every object not fixed to a wall rallies up on him, beating him and pushing him towards the door. He loses consciousness as he's hit repeatedly, arms flailing in a vain attempt to defend himself from the blows. A coat hanger hooks on the collar of his jacket and drags him outside. The door slams behind him.

 

It's late afternoon when he comes to, and he immediately tries the door, which resists all his attempts to break it down. He alternates between unsuccessfully trying to pick the lock and trying to find another means of entry, but the house has turned impregnable for him. Enraged, he starts pounding on it with his fists, rams against it, shoots it - nothing gives. It withstands his assault like a fortress, unconquerable and impassive. He tries setting it on fire, but he soon finds the flames burn merrily without harming the old wood at all. He puts out the fire and comes back with an axe. He chops at it, only to have the axe fly out of his hands, broken. He gets behind the wheel of his Impala and tries to drive right through the front door, but the car jams abruptly, brakes coming on, pulling to a screeching halt right before the door. "Baby", Dean mutters in hurt disappointment. But it's not her fault. Dean tries to reverse and she comes to life, happy to drive away from the house. Dean parks her at a safe distance but comes back and slumps down right in front of the door. It's night-time again, past the witching hour. Dean wraps his jacket close around him, shivering, and eventually falls asleep. He feels Sam's absence like a missing limb and he does not want to put more space between them by going back to the motel. Inside the house, a music box plays an old circus tune which sneaks into his dreams.

 

CHAPTER 3

The old woman swings the door open just before dawn and prods Dean with the long end of a broom.

"Get up", she says.

Her face is in shadows and she frowns against the first rays of sunlight. She motions him in.

"I'll let your brother go. But you must do something for me. It’s the fairy tale way, after all you did call me an evil witch," she says in her sing-song voice.

Dean is too tired and chilled to the bone to argue that they're not in a fairytale.

He thinks, I have to get help, I need to get the sheriff, on the off chance that he’s not in on this. But he’s sure that the sheriff, and anyone else, really, except him and Dorothy, will walk into this house and not see anything out of the ordinary.

"I want you to give me something, call it an offering”, the old woman whispers dramatically.

“See, I can’t leave the house. I have to wait for things, and people, to come to me. It’s true what they say. You can never go home again. That’s why I chose not to ever leave. I have everything I need here. But there is something I wish, for my peace of mind. Your first born son – in exchange for your brother.”

“I don’t have any children”, Dean deadpans, “...that I know of.”

“I know you don’t, yet.”

“So, when and _if_ I have a son, you want me to bring him to you here, so you can put him behind a glass pane?”

“Oh no. Once you’re out of here, you’ll be free of me, and I will have no way to force you. So I want you to entrust his future self to me, now. He won’t end up trapped in these walls, no worries. But he will be trapped. He won’t roam the open road in search for adventures, he’ll be bound to home and hearth, a regular mortal. It’s a gift, Dean. A mutually beneficial arrangement. Let’s end the age of heroes.”

Dean smirks.

“Fine. I’m okay with this, what do I have to do?”

“Hold out your palm”, she says.

She cuts him open, a deep wound that slashes his lifeline and his heartline, zig-zagging a wavy line across. She catches his blood in a porcelain jar.

“I also need some of your seed.”

“My - _what_? ... Oh, no, you’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“I’m afraid not.”

Dean really doesn’t think he can oblige, under the circumstances, but he gamely wrenches the jar out of Hestie’s grasp.

“Can I please have some privacy for this?”

“No. I have to be present during the proceedings.”

She stares at him coldly, with no hint of humor or leniency on her face. Dean is not sure whether he prefers that, or the return of her playful demeanor.

“I am supremely uninterested in the side of life which you find so fascinating. I value family above all else - like you, Dean - but I am chaste and will always remain so. This is purely a business proceeding.”

“Either way, this is fucked up,” Dean groans.

She crosses her arms and continues staring. Dean winces and looks barrenly at the wall, trying to conjure some helpful imagery. None is forthcoming.

“I know of a few things which might help…”, she says thoughtfully.

“Believe me, I don’t think you do”, he winces.

He watches in horror as she stands on her tiptoes to whisper in his ear.

“I have some ideas, even if you work very hard to keep them from me....and from yourself. Don’t worry, I won’t judge. I come from a dysfunctional family, myself.”

~

Dean will definitely rank that moment in the top 5 most horrific of his existence.

“I feel violated”, he states, wiping his hand on his jacket, porcelain jar shaking in his hand.

“Thank you”, she smiles. “Goodbye, Dean. Have a nice life.”

She motions him away, and the furniture starts rattling dangerously, as if preparing to escort Dean out.

"But you said...", his voice trembles, he feels ridiculous, vulnerable and uncertain.

"I lied!" she sways from side to side, gleefully. "Evil witches lie, don't they? Now be off - give me that" – the jar flies into her hand - "and now be off!"

"No", Dean says.

"What are you going to do? Gonna huff and puff and blow my house down? Even if you could, your brother goes down with me."

"He's already dead."

"No one in this house is _dead_ ", she says, as sternly as she can muster in her sing-song voice. "Want to find out what it feels like, trapped in a wall? Clawing at the bricks, choking, trying to gulp every bit of precious air, knowing you can't escape, knowing your time is up? Over and over again. And in between - dreams, blissful forgetfulness. Clean the slate, then repeat - to eternity."

"What about the cat?" Dean blurts out, then wonders if he's losing his mind.

"What about it?" she grins. "Every house needs a cat."

"So does any mad old bat", Dean whispers under his breath. Then louder: "Go ahead then. Take me."

"Oh, don't tempt me. Why would you want that, though? Can't save these people....can't save your _brother_...can't even save the bloody cat! If you don't get to play the hero, you'll play the victim, is that it? Nah, it's too easy a way out for you, little man. You'll take forgetfulness any way you can get it, eh? Even if it comes with some pain?" She studies him. “No, that's not it. You welcome the pain. The anesthesia in between is just a bonus. You crave the pain, you think you deserve it."

"I do deserve it. Sam doesn't. Please."

"I'm not here to give gifts. And as for Sam - what if I were to tell you that this here is still better than what awaits your brother down the line?"

"What are you talking about, crazy bitch?"

"Your brother's fate is cruel. If he leaves here, much worse awaits him. And you'll agree to it. It’ll be you who seals his fate."

"What mind games are you playing?"

"No mind games. I looked inside him and I saw, just as I looked inside you and saw your self-hatred and guilt. I can read people, sometimes I can read their fate." She shudders. "His fate is more horrible than anything I could envision."

"What?" Dean barks. "What is it?"

She ignores his question.

"Ponder this - if you rescue him only to inflict that other worse fate on him ... just because it suits you, just for your own benefit, because you can't live without him - how are you any better than me?"

Dean pauses, nods to himself with a grimace, then his face sets.

"Listen, witch. I don't believe a word that comes out of your lying mouth. But even so, if worse does await - I'm gonna be right there with him. Facing it head on. And we're gonna see it through. But first, I'm gonna get him out of this moldy den and I'm gonna send your wrinkly witch ass straight to hell."

The corners of her mouth twitch.

"And how are you gonna do that, Dean? Any ideas?" she asks brightly, her eyes twinkling and her voice climbing up a notch. "And even if you do manage to send my 'wrinkly ass straight to hell", she mocks his rugged tone, "Sam's still trapped. There's no way you can hurt me without hurting him. We're connected. Maybe...maybe this is what really gets to you, Dean. That you're left out. You remember what that's like. Being ripped out of your home, out in the cold, your house burned down."

Dean swallows, wincing. His bravado fades. She smiles.

"Oh, I can see all that. You rescued your brother from that house twenty-three years ago. But you can't rescue him from this one. Such a kind beautiful soul, your brother. Pure, despite - well, despite everything. We get along so fine. I'm glad you two decided to come here."

Dean looks crushed; he turns, shoulders sagging. He doesn't make it further than the front porch. He curls down on himself, defeated, and waits for dawn.

~

"She's doing some sick personalized version of the old immurement sacrifice", Bobby tells him, when he calls him later that night. He's been patiently listening to Dean recounting his latest meeting with Hestie and he sounds as exhausted as Dean. The house is silent and still but for a two-note melody played on a harmonica in an endless loop. Dean had just woken up from a dream of Sam smiling at him peacefully from behind the window, as Dean howled and banged on the glass that felt cold and immovable like ice. Tears were streaming down his face and horror tugged at his insides. Sam pressed his hands against the glass and whispered "Dean, I'm here". Dean pressed his hands on his side of the glass opposite Sam's, but when he looked up, he saw worms eating at his brother's decomposing features.

"Immurement? Okay, sure", Dean sighs, rubbing at his eyes. "And that means, what?"

"In the old days, people believed that a building could be made to endure by human sacrifice. This idea gave birth to a barbaric custom, thankfully not very widespread, in some parts of Europe, like Greece and Germany, even as recently as the 19th century. The victims were usually children or young girls, someone pure at heart, and they'd be trapped into the foundation of a building, or a bridge. It was a slow painful death, thirst and starvation usually killed them before lack of oxygen did."

"Usually?"

“Depends on the building. But that's just the tip of the iceberg of what you're dealing with, Dean.”

“Do you think Sam is still alive?”

“Yes, but don’t start celebrating just yet. This woman, whatever she is, you can’t destroy her while she’s working her mojo and she’s protected by the house, and I’m not sure you’d want that, anyway. Her magic is the only thing keeping your brother alive at this point.”

“Tell me you got something, Bobby, anything at all that I can use”, Dean groans, wishing he could smash the mournful-sounding harmonica to pieces.

“I do. I’m wiser on the subject than the last time we talked. But - you're not gonna like what I found.”

“There's no way I can like this any less.”

“Well, for one, not only Sam but everyone in that house is still alive. Even those who have been there for years. I’m pretty sure they wish they were dead, but they can't be. She keeps them in a sort of limbo, a stasis, if you will-“

“How?”

“Powerful linking magic. That symbol you showed me, it's a variant on a linking symbol, used to connect the animate to the inanimate. Not just connect – bind.”

“Right, so - binding magic?”

“Sort of, except this goes both ways - the house and its tenants, if you wanna call them that, keeping each other alive.”

“Specifically, how?”

“That symbol you showed me, it’s a mark that melds the animate - that's those wavy lines, into the inanimate - the straight lines. That also works the other way round - still life becomes animate, which explains why the door hanger pushed you out the front door. It's symbiosis. Seemingly incompatible forms in close co-dependency. The rectangle inside the circle. Cause and effect ad infinitum.”

“Thanks professor, but I destroyed that symbol. And her little makeshift altar or whatever the hell it was.”

“That’s like cutting someone’s finger off, it might inconvenience them, but not stop them. Certainly not a powerful witch like her, or, if my theory is correct, a goddess.”

“So, so- she's not working necromancy, like we first thought, and she’s a goddess?”

“Yeah, the name is too much of a coincidence, and even if it doesn’t entirely fit with what we traditionally know about her...”

“I’m not interested in your PhD, Bobby. Give me practical. How do I end her?”

“Don’t you think that if I knew, I might have led with that, Dean?” Bobby remonstrated gently.

“Well, what _do_ you know? I still don’t understand, what is happening to Sam and the others? Are they suffering in there? Are they unconscious, in a coma? How do I wake them? How do I even find them?”

“The answer to your first question, Dean”, Bobby replied patiently, “is that I know little and most of it is conjecture. My sources for this aren’t what I like to call reliable and most blanks I’ve had to fill in. The Hestia creature harnesses the power of the symbol to work her twisted bit of binding magic. But that’s not all she’s using. For the most powerful ingredient of her spell, she must sacrifice her captives. They die over and over again, sustaining her house and herself, and strengthening her powers. She doesn't need to up the body count and draw attention to herself. She gets what she needs from those she already has. It's a vicious circle that sustains itself by torture and sacrifice, prisoners being kept alive by their very death throes...”

“All that so a little old lady can have afternoon tea in that frilly armchair of hers? But how can this even work, Bobby?” Dean asks, voice strained with incredulity.

“There's sanctity and there's power in the last rite of passage. It wasn't cadavers that people believed sustained buildings and it wasn't meat the ancient gods wanted, it was the offering up of life that had potency, that was the ultimate gift. You don't mess with power like that, and if you can harness it - well, my guess is you're witnessing it.”

“Bobby, I'm – God, Sam... How 'm I gonna save him, Bobby? If this is true - he suffers horribly and I can't -!”

“Now listen to me, Dean. You are the only one who has got so far as to even see through her veil. You're the one who can stop her. And you will figure it out. You see Sam in your dreams, you get precious insight from him. And from your talks with the old woman - she hasn't trapped you yet, God knows why but I'm guessing she doesn't see you as enough of a threat. These are all good things, that work in your favor. Learn what you can. And don't give in to her mind games, Dean. You're a good hunter. You gotta start thinking of her as prey, her weakness will show. Keep your head, son. I know this is the stuff your nightmares are made of, but you can't help your brother by losing it now."

~

"Dean!" Sam screams.

"I'm here. I'm here, baby". The term of endearment comes unbidden, unconsciously, in his dream. It's the first time he calls him that and it makes so much sweet sense that he repeats it. Baby, his car, his brother, all he has in the world and all he wants."I'm never leaving you again, Sam. I'm here."

*

She wakes in the night, startled at the change in her melody.

Sam is beating on the inside of his glass prison.

It shakes her to the core, the violence, the resistance, and it feels she might break. She stumbles out of bed and down the hall. Candles spring to light on both sides to guide her way.

"No", she says as she reaches Sam's stained window. "Rest in peace, little boy."

Sam looks back at her, not dazed or terrified, - but shockingly aware and stern-faced.

"You can't hold me here."

She takes a halting step back.

"No you don't", she grimaces, then runs back, towards her room, the center of her power.

Behind her, the glass breaks.

*

Dean has no idea how it happened, was it him who hurled himself against the glass, or Sam from the inside? Was it both at the same time? But they're both in a heap on the floor, clinging to each other, bruised and bleeding with shards of glass in their hair. Dean grips his brother's hand and its warmth gives him hope. Sam's face is ashen-grey and his eyes are glassy and Dean is scared out of his wits for him, and they're not out of the woods by a long shot, they haven't even made it out of the room, but Sam's hand is warm and for the moment that's enough for Dean. He grabs at his brother's arms and pulls him to his feet. Sam's throat constricts painstakingly, trying to speak. Dean puts his hands on his brother’s shoulders to steady him.

"Hey, hey, Sammy. Let's get you out of here."

Sam still tries desperately to talk, his mouth opening and closing like a fish and Dean puts his ear to Sam's lips.

"Did you....save the cat?" he finally hears a whispered rasp.

Dean gives a lopsided smile at Sam's pathetic attempt at humor. It fades when he notices that his brother is serious, and frantic, tears barely kept in check and his breathing unsteady.

"Dude...easy....easy." He presses one hand on Sam's chest, over his heart, the other still gripping his arm in an attempt to keep him upright. "First things first. You need water and food or you're gonna die. For real. Then we'll come back." There's no way he'll let Sam come back here, ever, but he white-lies his way through it easily. "We'll get Bobby in on this, get Missouri, we'll get every hunter we can trust, Sammy. Once we have a solid plan, we'll roast the bitch."

"Dean, the cat suffers way more than the people."

Dean stares at him.

"We need to save the cat", Sam mumbles, like he hadn't heard him.

Dean chalks it up to delirious fever and drags him slowly outside the room. Miraculously, nothing in the house moves to stop them but Dean advances cautiously nonetheless. "Please God, let us make it out the door, please", Dean grits out. The door looms into view in the darkened hallway, but suddenly Sam starts to struggle in his grip, trying to turn back, fighting Dean's attempts to pull him forward with everything he's got.

"You have got to be kidding me", Dean growls, tightening his hold. "Are you crazy, Sam? Forget about the damn cat! I barely got you out!" he yells. "I'm not going back. What I'm doing, is getting us out of here and putting this place in the rear view mirror. Now move!"

Sam clamps his mouth shut, but his eyes stay frantic. The tears start pouring at an alarming rate down his sunken cheeks.

"Dude, what the hell", Dean blurts, exasperated, but his voice softening. "How do you think I feel about all this? We also left people behind, in case you're forgetting. But I promise you, we'll come back. We'll save the people, and we'll save the cat, too, while we're at it."

"Dean, you don't understand. The people, she - she keeps us in a sort of trance, she keeps us complacent through music and...and smells - all the time I was in there I smelled lavender and baked apple - until it's time to slip into - into dying, and it's horrible, Dean, the peaceful dream turns into a horrific nightmare, everything becomes twisted, you live your last minutes in pure terror - well, you think they're your last minutes but they're only the latest in a long string of them, remembering with each new one the terror of the previous ones. But the cat, Dean, the cat is terrified like this _all the time_ , she can't control that animal like she controls people, she's got no power over it."

Sam is shaking and crying all throughout his tirade, voice breaking pitifully. Dean can only stare, bewildered, at a loss of how to respond. He tries to keep calm and think. Suddenly a question arises in his mind and he frowns.

"Wait a minute. How do you know all this?"

Sam blinks. "I'm one with the house and everything inside it. I hear her, Dean -"

Dean takes an involuntary step back. "Do you? Even if you could, isn't her magic supposed to keep you clueless of everything, right up to the moment when it's sacrifice time? How did you break free, Sam? Or _did you_?”

Sam smiles and his face is no longer ashen-grey. It's beautiful like Dean remembers it, but twisted, his features sharpened like an angry artist drew them in thick crayon. He smiles wickedly at Dean, in a parody of amused affection as he edges closer and bends to kiss him sweetly. "I'm here, Dean", he whispers against his lips. Dean takes another step back, startled, and the stained glass pane falls between them with a snapping sound, like the lid of a coffin being sealed, even as Dean rushes forward again. "I'm here, Dean. I’m always here", Sam says, sounding far away and infinitely sad and Dean can’t stand it anymore, misery chokes him, he digs his nails painfully into his palms and jolts awake. He's lying over the threshold, half inside, half out and the old woman is bent over him, disheveled and wild. She laughs, relieved to see him awake, laughs like a danger has been narrowly averted. Dean feels the same.

"Ohh close, little boy, close but not quite ci-gar!"

"Is it true, about the cat?" Dean asks mindlessly. Somehow, this tugs at his mind still. "Let the poor creature go. Come on. She can't be that much use to you."

She smiles uncertainly.

"You're a good man, Dean. Behind all that macho bravado. You'd have made quite the gentleman, had you been properly raised. Believe it or not, this actually makes a difference to me. Let me tell you this about myself, I would never let an innocent creature suffer like that. But it's interesting - how you focused on the cat. Or was it your brother? Your dreams are so enmeshed I can't really tell. But you sensed it was special, and this is so unexpected, that I'm going to reward you by letting you in on a little secret. She's not part of the sacrifice. She's here with me, on the surface, warming up by the fires of the hearth. Now that I've told you, you'll be able to see her. She's fine, really! She misses her mistress and sulks and won't eat but - she'll get over it. I take good care of her."

She smiles again, with confidence this time. Little by little, she had regained her bearings. By the end of their conversation, her content grin is back in place. But Dean has seen her frightened, uneasy. It gives him strength.

~

When Dean dreams next, it's of the attic. He doesn't remember seeing an attic the first time he was there, and now he sees why: it's been concealed, the attic door painted over, the attic not made a part of the house. The shingles are all but gone, and it's raining inside. Dean smiles. When he wakes up, he can still feel the rain on his face.

He pushes the door open, and the house lets him in. He does not step inside with the intent to destroy, all he wants is to open a door, a door the house itself has forgotten about.

*

Sam looks down at Hestie, his eyes too clear and lucid for her comfort. She has to remind herself that he's still trapped and he's not going anywhere. He speaks sternly but not without pity.

" _You_ gave me the means. You showed me the way. You  wanted to die. You let me and Dean again and again, into your mind. You let Dean sleep by your door, you let him be aware of your dreams, your weakness. You could have had him walled in, instead of playing with him. You could have put me inside a solid wall, not behind a glass. Everything you've done, since we've stepped over your threshold, has been a cry for help."

Dean suddenly appears behind her, his face calm. She looks from one to the other, towering over her, despite one of them being trapped by _her_ spell, the nerve of these mortals, when will they ever learn not to stand against their gods?

Suddenly a violent thunder - or is it an earthquake - something alien, foreign, that she's never felt in the house before, shakes her to the core and she twists and bends, pained, her features contort, she yells in agony. The walls shake – if it’s an earthquake, then neither will survive it, they'll all get buried underneath the rubble. But the house can't FALL, and _yet_ \-- pain unimaginable shakes her, driving her to claw at the walls, she bangs with her frail fists on the stone, lifts her head up, begging for mercy. And mercy is soon forthcoming. Above her - a blinding flash of white light shines down from the high ceiling. No, it is not the ceiling, the ceiling is open - it's altogether _gone_ \- it is the sky - sunlight. The bright sunshine after the rain, and she cringes at the touch, at the feel of air and sun on her wizened face, she reacts like to a blow, shivering of cold. It is too much of the outside, too little of home. She falls to the ground, still gazing upwards, and shrivels slowly to a heap of old clothes and mildew. A speck of dust raises slowly from the mound which is all that’s left of her. Dean attacks the stained glass and this time it gives, breaking into pieces. Sam steps out haltingly. Together, they stare in bewilderment at the defeated creature at their feet, at the anticlimactic end of this powerful being.

Dean looks at Sam out of the corner of his eye, smirks:

"Are you gonna say it, or shall I? Ding dong the - "

"Dean!" Sam interrupts, looking around.

The walls still tremble.

"It's gonna collapse. We gotta get out of here!"

They run, as the house crumbles, Sam trailing behind, half leaning on Dean, his legs unwilling to move after their long captivity, ducking and weaving their way to the door, stones and rubble falling all around them. They almost trip over a small ball of yellow fur, frozen in statuesque terror in the middle of the destruction, run on, then stop at the same time and look at each other. They retrace their steps and Dean picks it up; it abruptly comes to life, viciously spitting and growling, scratching Dean for his effort, and he swears and shoves it at Sam. Then he grabs his brother's cat-free arm and throws it around his shoulder, all but carrying him outside. A stray beam falls on them, but aside from that they escape relatively unharmed. They make it over the threshold, and barely a few yards out when a deafening noise stops them dead. They turn to look as the house crumbles to dust on the spot, in a grander repeat of Hestie's demise. Panting heavily, Sam slides to the ground, the cat still clutched against his chest. The poor creature's heart is beating double time but it lays quietly as if recognizing in Sam a fellow sufferer.

Dean feels no sense of victory or completion. He should be relieved he got his brother out safe and sound, but all he feels is the same gnawing emptiness that he’s learned to live with since his own narrow escape from death months ago. He slowly brushes dust out of his eyes, dizzy and weak, like after a long illness. He looks at the ruins of the house with a sense of longing, wishing he could be there too, crushed among the rubble. With a shock, he realizes that what he feels is envy, for Hestie's ultimate and final end.

“Dean”, Sam tugs at his arm. “What’s wrong?”

So like Sam to worry about him when he’s the one who’s been through the horror of it all.

"It’s nothing”, Dean says dismissively. “Except - what did we do here, Sammy? We didn't save anybody."

Sam pulls at his arm, bringing Dean down to his level, and Dean goes easily, wrapping himself around Sam, his face buried in his hair. They sit like this for a while, unmoving, until the cat starts to whine, and Sam starts laughing.

"We saved her", Sam half-smiles, looking down at the cat now tugging at his jacket. "And we saved the others too, from a horrible fate. They rest in peace now."

Dean can find no words of argument, or of acceptance.

*

The look on Dorothy's face as they show up at her door with the cat brings a smile to Dean's face. He thinks it's ironic that the little girl cried so much for the loss of her cat but remains blissfully unaware of the loss of her biological father. Dean thinks of his own father’s death and adds some more guilt to the already mounting pile.

*

Back at the motel, Sam seems to come apart. It's as if, job over and done with, Sam is allowing himself to finally experience the full horror of what he has been through. His hands tremble as he undresses, a rhythmic tremor running through his body. Dean shakes himself out of his self-indulgent daze - his little brother needs him. Dean frowns as he imagines how the ordeal must have felt. He wants to touch Sam, reassure himself that he's alive and safe, but he pushes his own selfish need away, watches anxiously, ready to step in and help, as Sam hesitantly pulls his clothes off and leaves them in a heap on the floor, moving towards the bathroom.

"Imma take a shower, Dean", he mumbles.

"Do you need any help?", Dean stumbles. "It's just - you're not that steady on your feet. Don't want you to fall in there."

"I'll be fine."

Dean's fingers twitch in their thwarted attempt to reach Sam, but he leans back in his chair. "Okay, Sammy. Call if you need anything."

Sam does a pale imitation of his usual bitch-face and closes the door behind him.

Ten minutes and a call to Bobby later, Dean's self restraint snaps with the effort of not checking up on Sam. He hears the shower running but too little movement inside for his comfort.

He knocks on the door and says, loud and bratty:

"Can I come in? Gotta drain the lizard".

No response and he rushes in, pulls the shower curtain aside. Sam sits crouched underneath the stream of water, his knees tucked under his chin, long arms wrapped around himself, shivering with cold, despite the fact that the water is scalding hot. Dean swears as he turns off the shower, wraps arms around Sam, trying to get him to stand up, fails. Sam is non-responsive, his eyes unfocused.

"Sammy, look at me."

Dean turns on the spot, runs a hand through his hair, tries to think. Wounds and bruises he can fix, but a shell-shocked, unresponsive Sam is something he can't handle. Except he must. He grabs a towel and dries Sam off, where he can reach, pats him down gently, murmuring nonsense, tries to keep his voice steady:

"It's alright, Sammy. Got you out. You're safe. I'm here with you, baby boy.” Dean bites his tongue but Sam does not react with shock and horror at the pet name, so Dean continues to mutter soothingly: “It's over. It's over. I'm not gonna let anything happen to you. I swear." He runs a hand through Sam's wet hair and presses his lips to his temple. "You're alright, Sammy, come on. Let's go. Come on, let's go to bed."

He puts his arms around Sam and this time Sam rises, allows himself to be led out. Dean breathes in relief and maneuvers Sam towards the bed, wraps him in blankets and lays him down, drawing him firmly against his chest and spooning him from behind. Sam curls in on himself, like he does when he wants to make himself small and unassuming, an improbable feat for someone his size, but he manages it well enough, so Dean protectively wraps himself around Sam's larger frame, a perfect fit.

"Shhh, shhh", Dean repeats on the same soothing tone, although Sam hasn't cried, hasn't said a word. Even the sound of his breath is subdued. Dean presses a hand over his heart and feels the slow, steady beat. "I got you, Sammy."

And then, just as he starts drifting towards sleep, he suddenly remembers Hestie’s words: ' _If he leaves here, much worse awaits him. And you'll agree to it. It will be you who seals his fate._ ' They’re lead over Dean’s soul, these poisonous words, settling in a thick layer, over the one made by his father’s last warning.

He can choose not to believe the evil broad, or he can choose to push the memory of her words in the corner of his mind where he buries all the crap that he never wants to revisit. But that doesn't change his certainty - that the only way anyone will pry Sam away from him is from his cold dead fingers. He tightens his hold on his brother and falls asleep.

Sam feels like a child again as he lies warmly tucked in Dean’s hold. He’s strangely comforted by Dean’s uncharacteristic show of affection. Jolts of unpleasant memories and pain still stab at his mind, but he can handle them. He’s alright. They have destroyed yet another monster and his brother has once again rescued him from darkness to envelop him in warmth and fierce love. Sam has stopped fighting the notion that they don’t mean the world to each other, in a vain attempt to protect himself in the event of a potential future without his brother. He has stopped pretending that he can live without Dean. After a while, he dares to reach and clasp Dean’s hand which rests over his chest.

 

THE END

 Comments / criticism very much appreciated! : ) Thank you for reading~


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